Enforced Disappearances in Balochistan: A short review of 2019

By Aaliyah Shah

Motherland is like mother and the mother is the entity in which every child lives safely and peacefully.

Likewise, every person in his homeland has the right to live in peace, everyone in their homeland always feels safe and secure. Unfortunately, the people of Balochistan cannot feel anything like this.

The question is why? What is the reason? Because of the “kindness” of the Pakistani army to Balochistan and Baloch people. Only because of the cruelty of Pakistani forces, every day, every week, every month or all year. Pakistani army abducts the innocent Baloch people from their house at midnight and they never come back to their homes. If they come back, then that’s just their dead bodies…

In the eyes of the Pakistani army, the Baloch are terrorists, whether that is an innocent child, a woman, a young unaware boy or an elderly man. Just because they want justice, freedom and their own rights. In 1871, when imperialism and British army divided Balochistan and handed over a portion to Iran from that day till today this series of oppression has been going on.

On the other hand, the army of Pakistan has proved how the people of Balochistan are living. Only a brief review of the year 2019 can estimate how many people are lost and disappeared every year in Balochistan.

According to the open sources “In June 2019, Pakistani forces disappeared 44 people from different part of Balochistan including district Awara, Kech, Dera Bugti and Bolan, just to name a few.

“One of these cases was the arrest of Bashir Ahmed, a resident of Awaran neighbourhood, when he was on his way to work on June 26. Bashir was tortured, resulting in his death and bringing his dead body the next day to the local hospital. Similarly, Yasin Basham, a student of Biochemistry in Bhawalpur University and resident of Turbat’s district Kech, was abducted. Moreover, the Pakistani forces continued the progress of abduction and disappearance, in Gwadar city.”

The victims of abduction from Gwadar City were identified as “Najib Noor, Rizwan Rahi, Adil Baloch, Naim Deedag and Bilal Baloch. Bilal Baloch and Rizwan Rahi were later released, while the whereabouts of the others are still unknown. To add more, in the month of June they abducted a child name, Ali Haider.

“On June 16, 2019, Ali Haidar, a 16-year-old human rights activist, disappeared from Gwadar Balochistan, and is believed to have been captured by Pakistani army forces.” In May 2019, the Pakistani army arrested a group of people extra-judicially and without specific charge. For instance, Maqbool Yar Mohammad was abducted by personnel of Intelligence agencies from his house in Hub town of district Lasbela on 3 May. After that in the same month did Baloch people, all are aware Pakistan always doing such cheap play with Baloch women and children
“On 20 May, forces raided the house of Allah Bakhsh in Gwadar, Balochistan and dragged him away from the house.

“Three days later, the house was raided again and the military took away his wife, Ayesha and two daughters, Mahtap and 16 years old Nazelah.

“Mother and daughters were released later while whereabouts of Allah Bakhsh remained unknown.

Furthermore, The disappearance continued, In April 2019, 59 persons were forcibly disappeared by security forces from Awaran, Kech, Gwadar, Lasbela, Panjgur districts of Balochistan.

Pakistan forces never get tired to creating havoc, mayhem and bringing miseries to the Baloch people.

Recently, the Pakistan and it selected government have started to return some previously missing persons to their homes. According to a writer, “just a glance on the statistics of July show how horrifically Pakistani forces have been carrying out enforced disappearances without any impedance”

There were 81 cases of enforced disappearances in this month and another 30 dead bodies were recovered from different parts of Balochistan. This has become a minor thing in Pakistan, Human lives have no value, No one dares to ask questions Pakistan and its institutions that are involved in crimes such as enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killing and creating criminals gangs to counter pro-freedom Baloch activists. The Human rights organisations and the UN are also reluctant of Pakistani forces and seems to have given them the impunity to carry on their heinous crimes.

Take the recent example of the same month on 24/25 Nov, old age respected Baloch women were abducted from their homes by Pakistani FC, military and intelligence agencies. They were held incommunicado and “tortured” for 24 hours and then they were indicted in fabricated charges of possessing weapons and facilitating Baloch resistance groups fighting for freedom of Balochistan.

The Baloch nation rejects the poorly scripted drama of Pakistan army and all the pro-freedom parties, as well as parliamentarians excluding those currently in government, have condemned Pakistan. The Baloch demand the immediate release of Baloch women from all over Balochistan currently being held by Pakistan army, FC, local authorities and their proxies.

The Pakistan army handed over the abducted Baloch women from Awaran district of Balochistan to the police and later sent to prison because of lack of “lockups for women” at the police station. Despite releasing these the Baloch women, Pakistan forces have added the names of another five women in the same indictment and issued the order of their arrest.